I loved making these homemade frozen pizzas. It was almost a day’s work, however it was a most rewarding one.

My readers are asking for frozen meal ideas. This is a keeper. Get the whole family involved in making these homemade frozen pizzas, the kids can make their own flavor combinations. Write their names on in and always eat what they like. Or maybe make a game, Make a pizza that you think someone else will like. We have have 21 days to get to know each other better. I made 3 kg bread dough and got 10 25 cm pizzas. My advise is that you work factory style, set up a production line, rather than making one pizza at a time. So, I made the dough and while it was proving, I made the sauce, grated the cheese and cut the veggies and meat that I used and kept it in small bowls. My factory line was set up.

Let’s talk about the pizza bases:

1. Roll out on a floured surface.

2. I used 2 x 300 cm slate tiles, preheat them on your oven’s highest setting.

3. Sprinkle a little cornmeal or maize meal on the tile, it prevents the pizza from sticking and it give a crispy, nutty finish to the pizza.

Homemade Frozen Pizzas

For the pizzas

Ingredients

2.5 kg white bread flour – if cake flour is all you have, also good

2 x 10 g instant yeast

10 ml sugar

about 2 liters strong lukewarm water

10 ml salt

Method

Place all the flour, yeast and sugar in a big bowl. Make a hole in the middle of the flour and pour about ½ of the water in the hole. Start working the flour and water together with your hands, adding more water as needed. Add the salt. When the dough is mixed and sticky, pour the content of the bowl on a floured working space and start kneading and folding the dough back and forth until it becomes springy and elastic. That takes about 10 minutes. Place the dough back in the bowl and cover with a tea towel and place in a warm place in the house to double in size.

Preheat oven to 260 C/500 F. Place the pizza tiles or slate(as I have used) in the oven to preheat.

When the dough has doubled in size, knock it down and divide in 10 equal size pieces. Roll each ball of dough into a 25 cm pizza base. Sprinkle some cornmeal on the tile and place a pizza base on each tile. Bake for 5 minutes. Look for light brown spots. Remember the pizza is going to bake again before you eat it.

For the tomato Sauce

Ingredients

1 large onion – grated

2-3 cloves garlic – finely chopped

30 ml Olyfberg Olive oil

2 x 410 g tins tomato puree

1 tin (use tomato puree tin) water

1 x 100 g tomato paste

salt and pepper to taste

125 ml chopped basil – if you use dry herbs, it would be about 5-7 ml

10 ml sugar

For the toppings

about 1 cup grated cheese per pizza

about 5 slices salami per pizza

2 of each green, red and yellow peppers – chopped and divided between some pizzas

125 ml shredded chicken per pizza

about 3 slices ham per pizza

6 olives per pizza

onion slices

NB – I just used what I had available, you can pick and choose any ingredients you want or have.

Method

Heat the olive oil in a pot and sauté the onion until it is soft and translucent. Add the garlic and fry for 1 minute. Add all the other ingredients, except the basil and cook for about 10 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. Add the basil and keep ready for operation pizza making.

To make the pizzas

Clean a large working surface in your kitchen and pack out all the pizza basis. Divide the tomato sauce between the pizza basis and spread to cover most of the base. I like to leave about 1 cm around the edge without sauce. Now the fun starts. I prefer the cheese at the bottom and then the toppings, but you can do otherwise. Once the pizzas are done, wrap in clingwrap, label and freeze.

When you feel like a pizza, preheat oven to 220 C. Unwrap and place on a baking sheet. Bake until the cheese is bubbling away.

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